Driver mows down, kills family of geese

RUTLAND – Dawn Murphy is an animal lover. One of the things she loves most about her family’s home on woodsy River Road is the many opportunities she has to spot wildlife.

“We see everything out here,” she said. “Coyotes, bears, foxes.”

But what she saw on Wednesday morning shocked her.

About 7:45 a.m., the driver of a pick-up truck appeared to deliberately run over a family of Canada geese that were milling about in the road, just opposite the water lily-filled pond where they have nested for years.

Murphy didn’t see the gruesome incident, only its heartbreaking aftermath.

“It was so disturbing,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Every year we look forward to seeing these same geese.”

The male and female geese and their 10 goslings were pecking for food one moment and the next, “they were dead all over the road,” she said.

Murphy’s neighbor who lives directly across from the pond that belongs to Pout & Trout Campground told her he heard a truck coming down the road when the vehicle “just floored it,” she said.

All the geese were crushed, Murphy said. Even a day later, dark spots left by brood’s blood, and drifts of downy feathers were evident for about 30 feet of roadway.

The impact was so strong that some of the baby geese were thrown back into the pond. The remainder were left on the roadway.

“It was so bad that you couldn’t even get by on the street,” Murphy said.

River Road residents and police think the act was deliberate. There is a long sight line along that stretch of the street, and the sound of deliberate acceleration reported at the time leave little doubt in Murphy's mind that the driver intended to plow into the birds.

It’s an opinion that’s echoed by police chief Donald Haapakoski.

“I thought it was terrible. It was a deliberate and unusual type of animal cruelty,” he said. “ It makes you wonder what kind of human does this and what else they’re capable of doing.”

It’s the same thing that worries Murphy, who is known to collect the litters of kittens left in her remote neighborhood, pay for their early care and find them homes or bring them to an animal shelter for placement.

Police want to hear from anyone who may have information on a beige or tan pick-up with oversized tires that would have traveled on River Road Wednesday morning, Haapakoski said.

The River Road neighbors have been pleased with the town’s response on the incident.

“The police have been wonderful,” Murphy said. “And it looks like the DPW has tried to clean things up.”